at the time of 24mp sensor Nikon had 12mp sensor, right... so if Nikon was capable to design a sensor w/ on chip ADC like Sony did then why 12mp did not have 'em... the only logical answer is that Nikon at the time of 24mp sensor design by Sony simpy did not have the know how and so could not have any on chip ADC design on his own
That evidence indicates that Nikon does not have the ability to design a sensor with column-parallel on-chip ADC all by itself, without help from Sony. It still leaves the possibility that when Sony and Nikon worked together on the D3X, that Nikon decided that it would like a modification of Sony's basic design to add the option of 14 bit ADC at lower frame rates, and either (a) Nikon designed just that part, and working with Sony for the rest of the sensor design, or (b) Nikon asked Sony to do a custom modification of the sensor's onboard ADC for use in the D3X, which Sony was happy to do for the right price. Either way, the difference could be more than toppings.
Getting back to the original topic of this thread, I can imagine Olympus doing a similar thing: not designing a new sensor from scratch, but working with Panasonic to make some design changes compared to the G3/GX1 sensor.
Another speculation is that this is pure Panasonic sensor, but it is the first sensor to use the GH1/GH2 sensor architecture (with on-board ADC) in the standard 4:3 format rather that the wider multi-aspect ratio format, and for whatever marketing reasons, Olympus is releasing a product with it before Panasonic does. That could explain the coyness about who makes the sensor, with the sensor origin to become clear when Panasonic uses the same sensor in a "G4" or "GX2" and acknowledges its paternity.
P. S. I am not sure why I am bothering with this speculation; I will try to stick to things like viewing high ISO speed images at sane sizes, no bigger than "fit to screen" on my 21" monitor ... which is about the same 19"x13", more than big enough for my extreme low light needs.
